Cloud Detection for High-Resolution Satellite Imagery Using Machine Learning and Multi-Feature Fusion

The accurate location of clouds in images is prerequisite for many high-resolution satellite imagery applications such as atmospheric correction, land cover classifications, and target recognition. Thus, we propose a novel approach for cloud detection using machine learning and multi-feature fusion based on a comparative analysis of typical spectral, textural, and other feature differences between clouds and backgrounds. To validate this method, we tested it on 102 Gao Fen-1(GF-1) and Gao Fen-2(GF-2) satellite images. The overall accuracy of our multi-feature fusion method for cloud detection was more than 91.45%, and the Kappa coefficient for all the tested images was greater than 80%. The producer and user accuracy were also higher at 93.67% and 95.67%, respectively; both of these values were higher than the values for the other tested feature fusion methods. Our results show that this novel multi-feature approach yields better accuracy than other feature fusion methods. In post-processing, we applied an object-oriented method to remove the influence of highly reflective ground objects and further improved the accuracy. Compared to traditional methods, our new method for cloud detection is accurate, exhibits good scalability, and produces consistent results when mapping clouds of different types and sizes over various land surfaces that contain natural vegetation, agriculture land, built-up areas, and water bodies.